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This article reviews the past-to-present academic literature on artificial intelligence (AI) in journalism. Over the past years, these technologies have attracted the sufficient attention of researchers from various fields of scientific study producing a large number of publications. We have reviewed academic articles published between 2015 and 2021 to provide understanding of the current state of the research on AI in various research areas including journalism. The corpus was gathered by searching publications in two international databases, Scopus and the Web of Science (WoS). 70 empirical studies were selected on the basis of applying AI to journalism. Each article was categorized according to the type of database, period of time, the country of publication, the field of study and the frequency of citations. The applied method of quantitative research allows tracking the development of research within six years in the field of automated journalism. Finally, we put forward several proposals for further research in this field.

The article discusses journalism education affected by the increased information scope, media convergence and introduction of new online teaching forms and face-to-screen communication during the coronavirus pandemic. Since the introduction of distance learning at universities, the quality of teaching and learning has been debated by students, teaching staff and officials. By having to overcome the difficulties, the students majoring in Journalism develop a necessary skill of gathering information and issuing school newspapers, radio and TV programs in the new informational reality of the crisis. The study included a survey aimed at finding out how students and faculty assess effectiveness of distance learning in COVID-19 context. Using a method of case study to make a complex analysis, the authors examine the academic process at the RUDN’s Department of Mass Communications as empirical object. The survey results reveal the key problems the respondents had to face when organizing and participating in the online learning process. The survey also helped to indicate the most convenient applications for online lecturing and the most effective teaching techniques, and to analyze the performance of the university’s internal telecommunication learning and information system.

Covid-19 has catalyzed positive disruptive change in the contemporary education system. It has accelerated the necessity of an innovation implementation process, technology-enhanced learning environment, customized and student-centered learning. It has enabled educators to tailor course content and pathways to students’ strengths, skills, interests and learning profiles. Adaptive learning is a contemporary method orchestrating human and digital resources to meet the needs of individual learners. The paper gives a review of the innovation process in education and the implementation of theoretical adaptive learning framework in Russian universities. It identifies innovators and early adopters who can assist two Russian Universities in attempts to implement new educational approaches. The authors also consider if there are any correlations between professors’ self-categorization and their practical application of adaptive learning in terms of the pace of learning, type of content presentation, knowledge state and students’ interests. Moreover, the researchers investigate and evaluate the Public Relations students’ perceived importance of factors affecting their learning: subject choice, subject knowledge acquisition, a type of subject content (text, audio, video), an individual pace in studying the subject, a lecturer’s guidance and group size.

The current study facilitates an evidence-based discussion on teaching during the period of an abrupt shift to virtual classrooms caused by coronavirus spread. There has been a massive investment to bring technology to universities; however, there are some significant gaps that must be addressed. The first is the availability of university online platforms and the second is the digitalization of the curriculum combined with teachers’ confusion and anxiety around the ability to adjust to the new digital environment. The study is aimed to research the current situation at two Russian universities: RUDN (People’s Friendship University of Russia) and PNRPU (Perm National Research Polytechnic University) and describe what changes have been implemented into teaching by the university administration and professors. The research questions include two groups: 1) Learning management system (LMS): Did the university offer a teaching platform to be used by all teachers? Or was it an individual choice of every teacher? 2) Curriculum: Did teachers have to modify the content of their course? In what way? Our study contributes several meaningful findings regarding understanding the advantages, disadvantages, and challenges in changing the education landscape.

Today many universities around the world offer various Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC). Reviews and MOOCs ratings help new learners to figure out what kind of courses are relevant to them. Usually, these ratings are based not only on students’ satisfaction levels regarding course content but on a set of highly influential complementary learners’ characteristics, mainly students’ qualification, background knowledge, skills, online learning experience. Therefore, it is suggested to use ratings to compare MOOCs with each other by different groups of students with various levels of experience, or to conduct a pretest to allow a student to choose personalized learning track based on their level of proficiency. In our study, based on two MOOCs of the RUDN University and two MOOCs of Pushkin State Russian Language Institute, we determine the contribution of students’ individual characteristics to the level of satisfaction with online courses and assess how it justifies the use of the rating for comparing courses.

The author considers the new techniques of achieving audience engagement by the example of foreign digital media publications. The researcher’s attention is directed to the comments section and alternative solutions that are developed to get more traffic and gain audience loyalty. In this study the author identifies five ways of communication with the target audience: crowdsourcing, test, voting, additional buttons and quiz.

The article deals with the challenges of journalism education in modern Russia and the necessity for its modernization. It analyzes the causes of education crisis and the ways of tackling the identified problems. The authors argue the significance of practice-oriented learning (PBL) and the advanced study of media production by the future journalists. PBL generates different competences of future specialists in terms of developing professional, social and personal values. Like many news outlets, journalism education programs are evidently unprepared to respond to such profound structural transformation of the environment. The study indicates that there is a crucial demand in expanding technology training and changing media emphasis tracks. Strenuous PBL approaches allow students to skill-up quickly so that they can spend more time applying skills to real life situations. Employability is a central concern of the current study. Educators owe it to their students to give them the skills to acquire a satisfying career and to be lifelong learners so they can grow with and adapt to an economy that no one can predict. Teachers need to think about and actively prepare students for the world of work. The research revealed the need for a variety of skills such as technical knowledge, habits of mind like problem solving, and social competences like teamwork and communication as a part of an integrated whole.

The emergence of modern technologies and their successful application to teaching and learning has been modifying the educational system at higher schools. A new millennial generation, so-called digital natives, learn and process information differently. They are digitally savvy, are keen on games and express themselves openly by posting comments and sharing posts on social media. New trends in education technologies have to adopt these peculiarities and urge educators to apply them to teaching. The article covers aspects regarding the application of Gamification strategy to teaching of Public Relations students at higher school. Game-based learning is used as a part of instruction in two different courses (Graphic Design and Business English). The paper investigates the implementation of game elements into e-Learning environments, namely the Moodle platform. It is assumed that their application to solving business problems at the lessons enhances students’ motivation and creates the atmosphere of a real Public Relations department. All together it generates and develops various competencies of future specialists in terms of developing professional, social and personal values.

The article examines the problems connected with the influence of new computer-based technologies on mass media production process; restructuring of editorial boards and publishing process in connection with convergence and multimediatisation. The paper analyses present forms of mass media consumption and the emergence of the concept of a media platform involving different formats of mass media’ presentation of information that meet the needs of the audience. The article examines the editorial boards restructuring aimed at professional roles devolution, rather than the increase of personnel. The traditional mass media that have moved toward convergence rearrange their work in accordance with multimedia principles. Besides, the article covers multiple examples of multimedia editorial boards that diversify forms of delivering news and create new synthetic media genres. The authors define terms related to multimediatisation. The digital transformation of media industry should involve changes in the professional education and training of journalists. That is why the Russian universities continue to improve teaching methods in the field of convergence journalism by training students as multipurpose journalists who could create content for different media and apply mobile technologies. The journalist department of the philological faculty at the Peoples Friendship University of Russia offers such educational program.